In this age of instant entertainment and Netflix, does the old gogglebox really offer much to students busy procrastinating? We at Pause have compiled a TV guide for today, although it will be valid any day of the year on which you choose to turn the TV on. You might as well, I mean, you pay the same for the licence (assuming you do, we do not wish to encourage criminal behaviour in this family publication, as victimless as not lining the pockets of millionaire TV stars is) as Roman Abramovich so you might as well get your money’s worth.
BBC
0600-0900: Breakfast TV mixed with regional news, invariably filled with fluffy feel-good pieces to make you feel temporarily less dreadful this early in the morning
0900-1100: Antiques/Auction/Housebuying show, many people wonder how the elderly are scammed so much and so frequently. Watch Antiques Roadshow to see some top tips on ripping old ladies off
1100-1200: Children’s Hour, but these days all the programmes aren’t as good as they were back in my day. RIP Basil Brush and the dog from Come Outside
1200-1400: Re-run of sugar-coated remake of a sit-com that originally aired in 1978, but the humour has dated as well as your Dad’s facial hair
1400-1600: Nobody really knows what happens here, sometimes an old film, more likely more ghastly shows about that uniquely British obsession of buying unaffordable houses
1600-1800: Pointless. Experience apoplectic rage as you score a pointless answer on the final round and could have won £7,000, but it was some utter drongo who couldn’t get a single right answer, let alone a pointless one, who happened to be on the show and not you
1800-1900: The News. Watch as the BBC covers news from everywhere in the world that isn’t called Britain, followed by half an hour of absurdly parochial regional news
1900-2000: A very serious documentary that involves Louis Theroux or Reggie Yates laughing at stupid people in another country, preferably America or Russia and with some perverse sexual deviancy to display to viewers
2000-2030: Eastenders, watch Phil Mitchell kick some soft lad’s head in repeatedly
2030-2200: Some ghastly Scandinavian crime ‘drama’ featuring loads of young attractive women being horrifically murdered and this being investigated by alcoholic detectives with daddy issues and messy divorces. Failing that, an even more culturally devoid British knock-off series in a similar vein
2200-2230: The ‘serious’ news where you realise how everything is going to shit. Featuring an interview with Ursula von Brussels, the German Minister for European Integration and Expansion, gently reassuring Andrew Neil that it’s not like last time at all
2230-2330: Question Time. Scandal-ridden Tory backbencher, sanctimonious Labour/Lib Dem [Politics Ed. let me know what the difference is – Pause Ed.] MP, failed comedian and insufferable ‘columnist’ argue in circles for an hour
ITV
0600-1000: Breakfast TV, but with Piers Morgan and Philip Schofield and other people who live to act as living proof there is no God, because he would have smote them by now with a bolt of lightning
1000-1200: Loose Women, do you like to pretend you work in an office with bitter middle aged women who make snide remarks constantly? If so, this is the show for you
1200-1300: News, like the BBC but with fewer long words
1300-1500: Jeremy Kyle, for when your faith in British society needs another kicking. The less said the better
1500-1700: Re-run of old show from when ITV commissioned good material
1700-1800: Innocent enough but vaguely tacky game shows. The precise show and format changes every few months
1800-1900: The Only Way is Suffolk, after budget cuts mean ITV can no longer afford Essex, this program follows the lives of lobotomised clowns living in Bury St Edmunds
1900-1930: Coronation Street, like the BBC’s Eastenders but more proper (ie drinkable) beer, common sense, grit and post-industrial decline
1930-2100: Fluffy period drama which skips over socioeconomic exploitation, dying of cholera and living in squalor, preferably starring middle-class actresses playing well-dressed nurses with interesting personal lives in some rose-tinted historical setting
2100-2300: Repeats of everything shown earlier in the day to make sure you missed no quality viewing
Channel 4
0700-1030: Reruns of cult American sitcom, with episodes played in no logical order
1030-1300: Come Dine With Me, a middle aged tart, overly camp man, argumentative red-faced man and someone with crippling social anxiety have arguments on TV
1300-1500: Inside Britain’s Parking Inspectors, Cutting-edge fly-on-the-wall documentary follows the exciting work of Parking Enforcement Officers working with Kettering Borough Council
1500-1700: A Place in the Sun, suspected armed robber Lennie Griggs is helped by the presenters to find an affordable villa in a Southern European country with weak law enforcement and no extradition treaty to the UK
1700-1800: Countdown, for elderly male viewers to gawp at Rachel Riley for an hour
1800-1900: News, like the BBC news but with even fewer non-US stories. If you’re British and outside the M25, it would take something pretty big to make it even as the short piece right at the end of the program
1900-1930: Hollyoaks, like the other soap operas but with more WKD and Malibu
1930-2100: Undercover: Inside Britain’s Betting Shops, brave undercover reporters investigate conditions inside high street betting shops, revealing the plight of pensioners spending all their money on poor horse choices
2100-2200: Embarrassing First Undatables, look at these people. Aren’t they so forlorn? Aren’t you much better than them?
2200-2230: Panel show, quite possibly the highlight of any of these schedules now all the funny comedians jumped ship to Channel 4
2230-0000: European soft-core pornography masquerading under a veneer of decency as “art-house” or “independent” cinema by celebrated French director Claude de Smuton
Channel 5
Don’t fucking bother.
